


Morning cuddles

by smol_fangirl



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Asexual Julie Molina, Asexuality, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, JATP Appreciation Week 2020, Make an appointment with your dentist because this one is going to be sweet, Mutual Pining, Sharing Clothes, So Much Pining You Guys, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and they were ROOMMATES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smol_fangirl/pseuds/smol_fangirl
Summary: Winter mornings aren't too bad when she can sneak into Luke's bed.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 33
Kudos: 291
Collections: JATP Appreciation Week





	Morning cuddles

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this almost had me melting down on the couch but what can I say, I really love asexual Julie and cuddles. 
> 
> Day 6 of JATP Appreciation Week: favorite trope

She wakes up shivering from the breeze rushing in through her open window.

Grumbling in a quiet protest, Julie pulls the blanket over her cheeks, but the wind already sneaks through the covers and tickles her feet before it crawls under her leggings.

She presses her face deeper into her pillow and sighs.

When she dragged herself into bed, the night had been surprisingly warm for mid-January, a kindness that apparently didn’t last to see another day. Instead it’s so cold that leaving the bed, and if only to slam the window shut, feels like a punishment from the universe for trusting it.

Another breeze. Another shiver over her spine.

With a loud sigh, she pushes the blanket away.

In front of her, Luke’s room stretches out in complete darkness.

He always sleeps with the curtains closed, but her feet find the clutter-free path to his bed with ease. The melody of his calm and steady breaths echoes through the silence, and if she squints, she can see his silhouette on the right side of the mattress. When she reaches his bed, she pauses just for a moment.

There’s nothing like the peace of his bedroom at dawn.

She takes a deep breath of the faint scent of his favorite perfume, and the last hints of the candle he insists helps him write. Eyes blinking shut, she imagines the expression she’d find on his face if the first day of light fought its way through the curtains, along with the soft curve of his mouth when he wakes up to discover her by his side.

The mattress squeaks at the sudden addition of her weight.

More slowly now, Julie crawls under his blanket. The fabric is warm from the heat of his body, and it smells like him. She buries her nose in it and inhales. Once. Twice.

Luke’s breath hitches.

His hand pats its way across the sheets until his fingertips reach the seam of her shirt and within a heartbeat, he pulls her in. When she rests her head on his chest, he exhales in content. His lips brush over her braids in ghosted kisses that are always worth hushing through the cold hallway in her pajamas.

Slinging one arm around him, she begins to draw messy lines where his shirt doesn’t hide his skin from her. Luke hums and rests his cheek on her hair.

Cuddled up under the blanket, sleep comes easy again.

His hand on her cheek. A gentle whisper in her ears. Luke, stirring underneath her.

She blinks awake. “Hm?”

“Spoon?” he asks, his voice rough with the last traces of sleep.

Without a word, she rolls over on the mattress. Soon, his chest presses against her back and his arm embraces her the same way she used to cling to her favorite teddy when she was nine. It’s a nice thought, being his teddy, and even nicer of a feeling. Whenever he exhales, his breath tickles her neck, like a wave playing hide-and-seek with the shore. It awakens a tingle in her stomach that she’s all too familiar with.

Not that she’ll complain, not when she’s caught up in the comfort of his arms.

With every minute he holds her, another trace of her dream fades away. When one single brave ray of sunshine finally slips through the tiny gap in the curtains, the memory’s gone altogether. It doesn’t matter. No dream, during day or night, comes close to the taste of happiness she finds during morning cuddles with Luke, anyway. In the warmth of his embrace and the softness of his first smile of the day, it’s almost too easy to convince herself that one day, she won’t have to sneak in his bed to wake up like that. That he wants her to stay, every morning, every night.

That she’ll never lose him.

 _Almost_.

The plane ticket on his bedside table catches her eye.

“I’ll miss you,” she laments into the pillow.

Luke wraps his arm tighter around her. “It’s just one gig,” he reminds her in a whisper, although the silent sigh clinging to every word gives him away. One gig, but three days without him, three mornings alone in her bedroom.

“I know,” she grumbles. “But it’ll be so quiet here without you. And cold.”

Silence.

The sensation of his face nuzzling her neck. A kiss tattooed on her skin. “I’ll leave you one of my jackets.”

A shiver erupts on her spine, travelling all the way to her feet.

“Not good?” he mumbles and eases his hold on her.

She robs closer again. “No, it was nice.” Her voice sounds like she spent the night shouting all of her favorite lyrics back at him.

He presses another kiss on her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Julie whispers. _More than you know_.

Luke is the first to get up. If it was for Julie, he’d never leave her in the mornings before she’s ready, but there’s only so many angry complaints from his stomach he can ignore.

It doesn’t stop her from trying, though.

“Stay? Pretty please?” she pouts, catching his hand in hers as he sits up and yawns loudly. But his fingers slip out of her grip to ruffle through his hair, and she only forgives him because of the laugh that pearls over his lips.

“Julie,” he replies with a soft smile as if it’s all he really needs to say.

She pouts harder.

He doesn’t see it, though, so her gaze follows him all the way to the window until he opens the curtains in one swift motion and she flops back onto the mattress, blanket pulled over her eyes.

A moment later, Luke yanks it away, snickering. _Traitor._

“Hey! It’s too cold!” she protests, which earns her another laugh.

With one knee on the bed to support him, he leans in. Boops her nose. His hazel eyes shine bright in the morning sun, and her heart skips a beat at the sight of his dimples.

Snatching the blanket out of his hands, she covers her blush underneath it. 

His smile widens. “Just get up, sunshine. I’m making breakfast.”

“The kinda breakfast with pancakes?”

“You know it, girl,” he says. His voice is softer than the sweater she’ll steal out of his closet in a few minutes.

“Thanks, Luke.”

“Anything for you, Jules. Anything.”

The scent of melted butter finally lures her out of his room.

Luke is standing by the stove, dancing along to the radio with the spatula for a microphone. This time of day, his voice sounds raspier – an effect he sometimes adds to his performances but that’s never quite as breathtaking on stage as within their shared four walls when his hair is a mess and he’s wearing a wrinkled t-shirt that’s too big on him.

So much happiness looks good on him.

A smile on her lips, Julie tip-toes to him. Before he notices her, she’s already behind him, arms wrapping around his waist, her cheek pressed against the soft dip between his shoulder blades.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he chuckles and brushes his fingers over the back of her hand. “Did you steal one of my sweaters again?”

“No,” she mutters into his shirt, “I borrowed it.”

Laughing, he wiggles out of her hold. “Of course.” Nodding at the kitchen table, he adds, “If you want, you can have the first patch.”

Her gaze darts to the plate on her place. Pancakes, butter, the maple syrup one of her dad’s colleagues always brings back from family visits, and a cup of steaming hot cocoa with whipped cream on top.

He knows her too well.

She nudges his shoulder and fights a grin. “Let me guess, you already snacked the first one straight out of the pan?”

“It’s not a snack, it’s a taste test,” he declares. “And it was delicious.”

“Dork,” she snickers under her breath as she sits down and waits. She never starts eating before he’s sitting in front of her, before their knees brush under the table and he gives her a smile sweeter than any cocoa in the world.

Today won’t be any different.

“Oh, by the way, you left this by the sink yesterday,” Luke says as he spins around to her, pulling her black Pride ring off his little finger.

For just one moment, she lets her fingertips linger on his. Under his gaze, she slips the ring back on her right middle finger. It’s not the first time he wore it for her – she remembers worrying about losing it in the middle of their first Pride parade when she needed to go to the bathroom, or after long concerts and on their walk home in the winter cold the night she forgot her gloves.

Every time the black steel graces his finger, she wonders if maybe, just maybe, he could fall in love with her one day.

“Thank you,” she says, eyes still on her ring.

“Not for that, sunshine. I know what it means to you.”

“Hey, Jules?” he asks later, when they sit in front of empty mugs and lonely crumbs on their plates, and his hand draws gentle lines on her knee.

“Hmm?”

“Cuddling with you is my favorite thing in the whole world.”

No force in the world could stop the smile spreading over her face. “Yeah, mine too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The nickname "sunshine" comes from [@pearlselegancies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlselegancies/pseuds/pearlselegancies) super fun social media au over on Tumblr, go check it out!


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